The Rhine provinces stand for all that is best and most characteristic of the ecclesiastical architecture of Germany, as contrasted with that very distinct species known as French pointed or Gothic.For this reason the present volume of the series, which follows the Cathedrals of Northern and Southern France, deals with a class of ecclesiastical architecture entirely different from the light, flamboyant style which has made so many of the great cathedral churches of France preŽminently famous.

e illustrated post-cards, which show clean-looking maidens bedecked in garments that look as though they had just been laundered. To these might be added advertisements of chocolate and other articles which show to some extent the quaint windmills and dwelling-houses of the towns. Apart from these there is little from which to judge of the wealth of architectural treasures of this most fascinating of countries, whose churches, if they are bare and gaunt in many ways, are at least as sympathetic in their appealing interest as many situated in a less austere climate. To realize this one has but to recall the ship-model-hung Kerk at Haarlem; the quaint little minaret which rises above the roof tops of Leyden; or, the grandest of all, the Groote Kerk of Rotterdam, which, on a cloud-riven autumn day, composes itself into varying moods and symphonies which would have made Whistler himself eager and envious of its beauty and grandeur.

In so far as this book deals only with the churches and cathedrals of the R